I have a piece in Pulp Fly Volume Two. I don't think it's the best thing I've ever writte, but it's OK. I was reading a lot of Raymond Chandler when I wrote it and wanted to spell 'cigarette' the way he does, 'cigaret', but apparently that didn't survive the editorial process. Not that this is the reason my piece isn't the greatest thing I've ever written, but I feel compelled to mention it.

And to give you a better idea about what Pulp Fly Volume Two is like, I've taken the liberty of excerpting my favorite quotes from each piece in the volume, in order of their appearance in said volume. The number or length of quotes excerpted does not necessarily represent my opinion of a piece, but probably rather something like their quotability. And if I found one quote really striking, that's the only one I grabbed. Though I should say that Sarah H. Grigg's "Eddy Speaks" and Pete McDonald's "Taxidermy" are definitely my favorites.

Erin Block: "I walk to the far end of the lake towards the inlet, where a stream flows down from the smaller lake in the next cirque up like a magnified series of pocket water plunge pools. As I rig, greenback cutthroats cruise around sipping caddis emergers, and I worry it will all be gone before I’m ready. Poof. Before I can get in the game."

Tom Reed: "He thought it was a shame to leave a good animal like her standing in a pasture, pot-bellied, rank —a baby factory. No, she was too good for that. So he rode her, rode her often, enjoying her ground-eat-way-of-go."

Matt Smythe: "Looking down he could see blood soaking through both his pant-legs at mid-shin. Both were at odd angles. Compound. He knew a friend in high school who busted both of his legs just above his ski boots one winter break. The thought came and went."

Matt Dunn: "There was a cardinal that threw itself against the east facing window until Frank shot it with his snake gun."

Sarah Griggs: "But always the optimistic mythbuilder, I interpreted the exchange as an Omen, the Universe guiding me along my Path through the vessel of this corsair."

"He thought I was an angel on a pedestal. I knew that I was as wretchedly human as the next person; I knew I’d rather be honest than pleasant. Besides, I was just passing through. But once people make up their minds about a person, when they hear the intoxicating Siren choir chant, the Projection often trumps the Truth."

"Here we found a mass of kokanee, tangerine backs lashing through the water like the neural refractors of a concussion. We squealed like Mennonites on a Ferris wheel and rigged up a combination invented by Erik the Red, “The Battle Axe,” ready to ambush the unsuspecting bacchanalia. Before we could launch the goods, a fish bounded across the surface. Compared to the arabesque whip of a trout, the kokanee’s leap resembled a blood orange pontoon plane coming in hot for a landing, flopping into the tourmaline water with a quasi-ridiculous, but joyous kerplop."

"The display triggered a searing instinct, in the same way the sight of a mewing, gangly-legged elk calf running for its life prods a grizzly to truck down the dainty, spotted ass and devour it."Tosh Brown: "'No. I'll give you that one, and the others you caught before lunch. That's when I got sick of watching you catch fish, right about noon.'"

Chris Hunt: "He hadn’t seen any sign of the bear since it shoplifted his salmon, and with a bellyful of fresh coho himself, he didn’t much mind that his first catch went to feed one of his new neighbors."

Will Rice: "The bottle of Sunny Caribbee Yellow Hot Sauce was jammed between the Marie Sharp’s Habanero Pepper Sauce (Ingredients: select red habanero peppers, fresh carrots, onions, key lime juice, vinegar, garlic and salt) and D’VANYA’S Original Hot Pepper Sauce (Ingredients: Water, Hot Peppers, Approved Starch, Spices, Diluted Acetic Acid, Citric Acid and Sodium Benzoate - straight from the Island of Nassau in The Bahamas)."Pete McDonald: "For some reason when he killed the fish he recalled this place. He had gone to Lake Placid with Laura once and he’d driven past it and wanted to stop there but she said no. That was it and it shouldn’t have been a thing that even mattered."

"It didn’t feel like a fish anymore. He had ruined it in death and he tried to think about what it all was even supposed to mean and he couldn’t."

Bob White: "An hour or two further on they came upon the berry pickers, made their camp with them, and spent the night." [I have to use this quote because Hemingway and Traver were effectively and charmingly berry picked by Bob White.]